I wanted to announce that I just started a Cause on Facebook- “Dads Protecting Daughters”. I include below the extended information about the Cause. I would welcome an expansion of this to go well beyond the Facebook orbit. Please feel free to comment:
I am a dynamic, orthodox Catholic who teaches high school, I’ve run for public office, I have lived in many countries. As a Christian convert I know the world quite well. I understand the challenge of overcoming the dominant Playboy/false feminism group think. I believe in an ecumenical Christian movement potential to stand up for our children before they are thrown to the wolves in our society.
The enemy is not one thing, it is a thousand ideas all of which are contrary to the dignity of human life. Strip clubs, abortion clinics, pornography, degrading music lyrics, divorce, contraception and endless marketing using base sexual instincts- all of these are manifestations of the cultural rot we are leaving for our children to live in.
Culture is like the air we breathe, if it is polluted it will damage lives. I can do everything right as a Christian father inside my home, but if I don’t take care of what is going on outside my door, in the streets, in the media and political chambers- then I am not taking care of business. I would not be loving my children enough because I falsely believed that my responsibility ends at the door.
I am willing to take on more responsibility but I need the help of a million Christian/Catholic dads. I am starting by appealing to those with daughters- that is our softest spot- having daughters purified my heart, and now I have a son, too. I want him to be tough but sweet-hearted, a gentleman. I want my girls to be strong and loving. I want all of my children to be committed Catholics, in love with God and honoring all the teachings of Christ’s Church.
The culture should be an assist in this work, not a bitter enemy. We must overcome evil with good. By use of democratic presssure and activism, and by the tools of education and prayer, we can win. We must win. These are our children’s futures that are on the line- what could be more important than this mission to give our best to our wives and our children? This is what legacies are all about- fighting the good fight on behalf of others- the little ones- we must let them come to our Lord, we must not allow the dominant culture to continue to block or put up obstacles in this holy process of spiritual growth and maturity. Will you join this Cause and help brainstorm ideas and take action?
Nice intention, Mr. S. But what pray tell would you like us to do?
Gerard- I hope I am not hearing sarcasm in your comment- but in any case- like I say in my note- the enemy is a thousand ideas that currently dominate our culture and socio-political structures. There are so many good ideas- like encouraging and helping Catholic dads to run for political office- like organizing KOC types to get out and protest in front of strip clubs and adult entertainment businesses. We can always lobby our political and business leaders to bring moral views into the marketplace. We can expose the smut, we can encourage one another to evangelize caring but unaware dads- are girls having their dads meet with their dates before going out at night? What happened to that tradition? I’m going to be insisting on this one- but I dated a lot in my younger years and I never went through this simple step- and that was a shame. This kind of thing is really up to fathers to get their act together. We need to combine the best of all the movements out there like Promise Keepers and the rest, but with a Catholic theological understanding of just what divorce means, what contraception does to relationships and to the health of women.
I can see so much to discuss and to organize- but there has to be a segment of profound, concerned Catholic dads out there to get something going on a lasting and national/global basis. If anyone knows of similar public movements I would like to connect with them- God Bless, Tim Shipe
This is a resource for Catholic Dads:
http://www.dads.org/
I’m not sure what the organization does exactly; I only know it exists. I hope it in some way helps.
Nice intention, but I would like to add a word of caution. From my personal experience, I felt that my Catholic parents worried so much about me as a teenager that it actually drove me to rebel against their control and my faith, driving me away from the Church for some years. There’s a fine line between guiding a child and controlling them (making choices for them) that ought not be crossed. I feel that Catholic parents should make sure to instill good faith and morals in their children, but must acknowledge that they will not always be at their child’s side, and thus prepare the child to make the right choices themselves.
Hat tip Eric! I just checked out Dads.org and signed up for their newsletter and wrote them an email to encourage some mutual networking- I’m going to post that site at the Cause page- great stuff- I know there a whole lot of Catholic and Christian papas’ out there who are feeling isolated and outnumbered- we need to get Lobby strength without selling out or becoming corrupt in our central mission- not to over-control our children, but set the conditions for them to have Love and Truth in their lives without being constantly challenged by the mass culture in which they are being raised.
Good luck raising a “tough” son. I’ll say a rosary that he turns out like a sweet-hearted little Rambo.
I don’t know how much interest this would be to others, but I once took a course called the “Psychology of Religion.”
I thought it was a very fascinating class and I was thinking of doing some posts on contemporary psychological findings on human religious experience.
Relevant to this post, I have found a particular statistic very fascinating in regard to “religious training and development.” In fact, the findings of such studies are actually testified to by many of my friends as well as myself:
1. If two parents are both religious, more often than not, their child turns out to be less religious, if not at all — a myriad of factors go into this, e.g. the growing phenomenon of single parent households, how the parents present their faith, etc., but the trend itself is constant — more end up less religious than others, though the margin is not alarmingly large.
2. If two parents are both non-religious, their child is more likely to grow up to be more religious, if not very religious. I have found this of all the findings to be more true of most of my friends than any of the others.
3. If only the mother is religious, the child is more likely to share religious belief, or lack thereof, with the father. If only the father is religious, again, the child is likely to share religious belief with the father. Therefore, studies show that fathers have a more influential role in terms of shaping the religiousness of their children.
I can look up the studies if anyone is interested.
No sarcasm meant. Just puzzled. Clearer now. Thanks.
Glad to hear it Gerard- it was that “pray tell” line that had me wondering- it is often used in a sarcastic sense.
Please check out the Facebook Cause if you are on Facebook- and join up and contribute ideas- I just had Norma Mccovey- the Roe of Roe v. Wade sign up for the Cause- I am inviting more than just Catholic dads- though I do want to bring these fathers together to draw up some plans of attack on the dominant anti-child, anti-woman, anti-human culture.
Good luck to you, but Jose’s experience was also mine. My parents were devout and very overprotective of me when I was a teen, and I rebelled and left the Church for a very long time. Yet, what can one do? Simply kow-tow to the culture and put your 16 year daughter on the Pill, because “everyone” is having sex at that age? I am not a parent, and sympathize greatly with the dilemma they face these days. I would agree with Jose about the fine line between guiding and controlling. At any rate, I wish you well. Looking back, there are many things I wish I had done differently and much false conventional ie secular (feminist) “wisdom” that I am sorry I heeded when I was younger and more naive. Now that I’m nearing 50, I realize more and more how right my parents were about many things. I wish I had known it at 18.
Donna- You know it is a requirement of the Catholic faith to educate your children and nurture them to be Catholics- so there isn’t any way out of that even if we wanted. I think that combining the faith demands with loads of affectionate love may be the best combination approach- and it is what my wife are attempting in our home- we’ll see how it turns out! But the Facebook Cause is really more about taking on the larger culture and political structures- that is the spiritual environment that is outside my home and is something I liken to thick, polluted air. And just like with air pollution, there are causes and there are things the citizenry can do about it. This is what I want to focus on with the Cause. There are more than a thousand bad ideas in the mainstream culture right now, and there are plenty of targets for our righteous intervention- so if you are up for a good and holy fight- I’m hoping this Cause will attract such types of Can-do Christians. Check it out on Facebook. God Bless, Tim Shipe